Meta

Month: June 2017

Since reforming in 2002 after a four-year breakup, Suffocation’s output has been promising, if a bit spotty. The quality of the band’s albums trends upward, yes, but it starts at a fairly shallow point. Their records go from the band awkwardly finding its footing (2004’s Souls to Deny), to slowing the pace down for improved results (2006’s self-titled LP and 2009’s Blood Oath), to making one hell of an impressive display of sheer aggression a quarter-century into its existence (2013’s Pinnacle of Bedlam).

Bedlam is easily Suffocation’s best offering since 2002, and among the best in their career. Yet, if there is a flaw to be found within it, it’s the same flaw that has plagued much of the band’s catalogue: too often the band mistakes mindless jackhammering and apathetic brutality for songwriting. Sure, blast beats and endless riffing are cool and easy to headbang to, but the slope of diminishing returns is steep. The closest they came to shedding it was Oath, a record that shifted the focus from headlong sprints to groove-based compositions but suffered the same issue regardless.

Sadly, the band hasn’t fully shed that tendency on their new record, the often brilliant …Of the Dark Light. While breakneck jackhammering is still prevalent throughout (especially on “Return to the Abyss,” “The Violation” and “Some Things Should Be Left Alone”), the songwriting is more varied than Bedlam. In this way, Light appears to borrow ideas from its two predecessors and combine the results. As an example, “The Warmth Within the Dark” is mostly a mid-tempo stomp (with bursts of speed that equals anything they’ve done) with a main riff during the quasi-chorus that has a slightly uplifting feel and is even catchy.

But Suffocation knows when to borrow from other bands to break up the monotony, too. Immolation, a fellow New York death metal institution, seems to be a source of inspiration on the opening of the punishing “Your Last Breaths” and the psychotic title track with their eerie leadwork over frenzied guitar crunch. Notably, the title track also slows down as it progresses – mimicking the passing of time in the lyrics – making it one of the few truly different compositions offered.

And then there are times when pummeling concrete does serve a purpose. “Some Things” illustrates this the best. It’s a sci-fi horror scene that finds some innocent strangers encountering a creature from another dimension that kills them purely for “wrong place, wrong time”. The song’s lyrics paint a grisly picture (“Spines snapped/Heads cracked/Carnage ensues”) as flailing riffs and light-speed drumming attempt to match said carnage. The song ends with vocalist Frank Mullen stating that the unlucky person(s) to stumble onto this “scene of malevolence shall be forever scarred” which is then followed by a delirious solo from lead guitarist Terrance Hobbs, as if to imagine the thoughts of the unlucky.

In keeping with a tradition dating back to 1995’s Pierced from Within, Suffocation ends …Of the Dark Light with a re-recorded track from 1993’s Breeding the Spawn. This time around it’s the fantastic “Epitaph of the Credulous,” riff-fest that describes a winged creature searching for “helpless victims” to feast upon. Mullen notes that, “The beast has no feelings/ It sees no remorse”, which is an apt description of the band itself. Suffocation begins its fourth decade next year, and there are no signs that this beast can be stopped.

For his new project, Arcadea, Mastodon’s vocalist and drummer Brann Dailor joins forces with two keyboardists and vocalists, Core Atoms of psychedelic weirdos Zruda and Raheem Amlani of black metal experimentalists Withered. The trio’s self-titled debut is a concept album that the band has described as envisioning “a future five billion years from now, where the impending collision of galaxies creates a new order of planets…where cold, distant moons pledge alliance to new suns and expanding gas giants implode into black holes” and where “Arcadea reign supreme as the last surviving space wizards since the final extinction.”

It is within this context that you begin to understand what Arcadea is: namely, a frontrunner for oddest album of 2017 and the silliest thing Dailor has ever been a part of—and keep in mind that Mastodon once made a record about a child’s soul traveling into the body of Grigori Rasputin via astral projection who tries and fails to overthrow a Russian czar…or something.

If the explanation of the record’s content isn’t ridiculous enough, simply refer to the lyrics. When the vocalists aren’t busy singing in the first person as a group of electrons (“We spin freely/ We breed orbit/ Velocity/ We crash to ignite, we are electric”), they’re trying to sell absurdist word salad (“Crystals that form on the outside of life/ Lifeless the seas that have sent them in waves/ Perfect destruction, we’re floating away/ Swim through the static, the ocean alive”) and cosmic beat poetry (“Push past the pulsar phantoms with future kind/ Erase, replace, deface, create the space”).

The assumption, then, is that it’s better to focus on the music and melodies, right? Well, mostly. The darting, nimble melody of “Gas Giant” and the ethereal vocals of Susanne Gibboney’s guest spot on “Neptune Moons” suggest as much. Hell, the vocoder-heavy vocal melody of “Through the Eye of Pisces” sounds like the first draft of a Daft Punk song, and “Motion of Planets” has an actual groove. The majority of the album, however, imagines oddball scenarios like electro-funk having an epileptic seizure or a pinball machine doing an impression of an Atari 2600. Keyboards and synthesizers pulse, twinkle, fizz, bubble, jab and stutter, yet to accurately describe this record is to traverse dangerously close to Dr. Seuss territory with onomatopoeic non-words like “skwonk,” “squink” and “twonk.”

Either way, Dailor’s drumming throughout demonstrates his unwavering faith in the proceedings. His effort to break up the wall of bong-ready keyboards and synths via his insistent jazz-style playing is both Herculean and Sisyphean in equal measure. Even on subdued compositions “Neptune Moons” and “Through the Eye of Pisces,” where he largely acts as time-keeper, Dailor can’t help but let a few fills seep out as if to imply the songs weren’t interesting enough as is.

Still, the record is not a total loss. Sure, there’s undeniable, right-brain creativity here, like when the keyboards in the left and right channels have a ray-gun fight (“The Pull of Invisible Strings”) or when the band attempts to soundtrack electrons colliding (“Army of Electrons”). Even the jam session that closes the record is loosey-goosey fun. But, it’s that esoteric nature which ultimately becomes Arcadea’s downfall. Weirdness is good in art, maybe even essential. When weirdness goes unchecked, though, it tends to suck away good ideas into oblivion—kinda like a black hole.

In which the band’s trademark robo-rawk is supplanted for robo-groove, likely thanks to the “Uptown Funk” guy, who produced the upcoming LP. (Not that it’s a surprise, but there’s a strong dance element to this – including handclaps and a flippantly sashaying guitar riff). Perhaps fittingly, Josh Homme wrote about his favorite topic (read: fucking) to match the artificial sexiness of the whole affair. Basically, imagine the next logical step after Era Vulgaris but with Mark Ronson calling the shots.

Second single from The Cicada Tree is gnarly, vicious, and catchy. In other words, it’s a Byzantine song – and a solid one at that. The pedestrian lyrics (“You trade the here and now for everlasting lies/ Just a barrier to divide those side by side/ They seek to define”) follow a well-worn path, but that’s about the track’s only downside. More of this, please.

It’s a decent, blues-ish anthem from the funk-metal vets’ upcoming record, Shade, but it’d be better without the electronic elements that not only date it to 2017, but also come off as a cheap ploy to sound modern and hip. Guys, all you had to do was rock out, that’s it. You’re trying too hard.

This is a compositional mess that seems to have Drake here just so the song reads, “Feat. Drake”. Khaled all but declares this to be a guaranteed hit and, yeah, it may well be. That doesn’t make it good, though.

They’ve carried over the disco tendencies from Reflektor, though the bloat seems to have been excised (thanks to Thomas Bangalter?) and been replaced with the once-lost folk aspects. So, folk disco? Meanwhile, whether Win Butler is being sarcastic throughout is unclear, though you can feel his disdain in a line like, “Every song that I’ve ever heard/ Is playing at the same time, it’s absurd”. This is a solid lead single, but remember this is AF so it could make or less sense in context of the forthcoming LP.

This seems to be the sibling of “The Pretender,” both in its structure and its inoffensively vague politicking. The difference is that “The Pretender” felt finished; this feels rushed and thrown together. Still, Foo Fighters is comfort food to many (myself included), and in 2017 we need it. If you still listen to modern/active rock radio, though, get ready to be sick of this song by summer’s end.